In May 1942 it was reassigned to the Army Air Forces School of Applied Tactics, where it was a training and test unit as the 50th Fighter Group (Special).

The group was called to active duty in connection with the Korean War in June 1950, but was inactivated a few days later and its personnel were transferred to other units.

The 50th Operations Group stood up at Falcon Air Force Base 30 January 1992, the same day as its parent, the 50th Space Wing.

[12][15] No sooner had the 11th been replaced by the newly activated 81st Pursuit Squadron in mid-January 1942,[16] than the 12th was moved to Christmas Island in the South Pacific Theater.

[10][14] While at Key Field, the unit was reassigned to the Army Air Forces School of Applied Tactics's Fighter Command School and became the 50th Fighter Group (Special) as it added the mission of testing new equipment and developing air defense tactics to its training mission.

[19] The 81st was assigned the "daunting task" of training sufficient crews to man seventeen night fighter squadrons within twelve months, initially " [w]ith no trained instructor pilots or radar operators, no aircraft, no radar, and no communications equipment".

[20] The original night fighter crews were recruited from 27 pilots from the group who were qualified to fly twin-engine aircraft.

[note 3] In Florida, the group added a fourth unit, the 445th Fighter Squadron, which was activated at Orlando.

[24] The group departed for the European theater in the middle of March 1944, leaving its Mustangs behind and arriving at its first overseas station, RAF Lymington, in early April 1944 with only Thunderbolts.

[23] At Lymington the group became part of IX Air Support Command and its squadrons were assigned fuselage codes T5 (10th), 2N (81st) and W3 (313th).

[2] Once established on the continent, the 50th attacked bridges, roads, vehicles, railways, trains, gun emplacements, and marshalling yards during the Normandy campaign.

The allied drive was so rapid that in September the group moved over 230 miles from Meautis Airfield in Normandy to Orly Airport, near Paris.

The 50th engaged in the offensive that reduced the Colmar Pocket in January and February and supported the drive that breached the Siegfried Line and resulted in the movement of Allied forces into southern Germany in March and April.

[29] The 50th Fighter Group received a Distinguished Unit Citation for close cooperation with Seventh Army in March 1945 during the assault on the Siegfried Line.

[2] The 50th received a second Distinguished Unit Citation for a mission on 25 April 1945 when, despite intense flak the group destroyed or damaged many enemy aircraft on an airfield southeast of Munich.

Training activity included participating in portions of the 33rd Group's air defense missions and exercises.

These fighters along with their pilots, support personnel and other equipment were taken over from the 140th Fighter-Bomber Group of the Colorado Air National Guard, which was simultaneously released from active duty and returned to state control.

The ground echelon of the wing sailed from Galveston, Texas, to Bremerhaven, West Germany aboard the USS General M. B. Stewart (AP-140).

[37] The original construction of Hahn Air Base had begun in 1951 by the French Forces of Occupation in Germany.

[38] On Arriving at Hahn, the group participated in Exercise Monte Carlo, a staged combat employment drill to illustrate the capability of North Atlantic Treaty Organization air defense forces.

50th pilots spent six weeks at the Wheelus range near Tripoli to improve their air-to-air combat and ground attack skills.

The F-86F crews of 50th scored higher in both the air-to-air and the air-to-ground events than any other unit assigned to Twelfth Air Force.

With the conversion to the newer F-86H nearly complete, the 50th Fighter-Bomber Wing began a move to Toul-Rosières Air Base, France.

[50][53] On 30 September 1998 the group's 6th Space Operations Squadron was inactivated at Offutt as the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) was transferred to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

This article incorporates public domain material from the Air Force Historical Research Agency